


on living backwards

by CristinaNovak



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst, Erehisu, F/M, Mild Smut, Minor Krista Lenz | Historia Reiss/Ymir, Pregnancy, major manga spoilers!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-15 00:35:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28679763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CristinaNovak/pseuds/CristinaNovak
Summary: Caught between love and duty, Historia comes to an agreement with Eren.
Relationships: Krista Lenz | Historia Reiss & Eren Yeager, Krista Lenz | Historia Reiss/Eren Yeager
Comments: 14
Kudos: 172





	on living backwards

**Author's Note:**

> A couple of warnings: This contains MAJOR manga spoilers! And also a lot of hints (like, big hints) to a certain theory about the identity of Historia's baby-daddy. There’s also a lot of time skipping, so bear with me.
> 
> Disclaimer: This whole thing belongs to Hajime Isayama. Apologies to him!

She knows this is merely an agreement, but sometimes she forgets. 

She can feel him inside of her and a gasp escapes her throat. She digs her fingernails into his shoulder and his back, she curls her toes against his calves, she tries to cling to anything but can already feel herself spinning out of control. He pushes against her and their eyes interlock; it’s hard to remember why they’re doing this in the first place. 

-

There’s been something missing from his eyes for a while now but she can’t put her finger on it. Eren is a brazen wildfire, a storm of emerald green, but in that moment she can’t find traces of either. 

It isn’t until he tells her of his plans that something finally clicks. She can already feel the sting behind her eyes even before she tries (and fails) to change his mind. Of course, this is Eren, and the future is seared into his mind like a birthmark now. She thinks she can still see small traces of horror in his face, a leftover from the day of the coronation, but he hides it well. Perhaps he’s even used to it, but she still catches glimpses of it in a twitch of his lips and in the crease between his eyebrows.

She thinks of clueless people, just like herself (and all of them) in what now feels like a different lifetime. She thinks of innocent children, exactly like those she rescued from every corner she managed to reach within the walls. She also thinks of destruction and it gets harder to breathe properly. 

He can help her, though. He can lift that burden from her shoulders. He can save her (like she once saved him) and she would be free from this knowledge. At least until she met with it once again.

He offers to do so, but she refuses.

“I told you before. I’m your ally.” She wipes her tears with her sleeve and thinks she catches a glint of something recognizable in his eyes.

 _I’m also the worst girl in the world._ But she doesn’t say it.

-

He gasps and it sounds like her name. Her real name. She can feel it in his hot breath as it brushes her skin. She can sense it on his lips against her own. She can see it in his eyes, pupils wide and still on hers. He doesn’t need to be this dedicated, not really. 

A small cry escapes her throat and it sounds awfully like his name, too.

-

Ymir had repeatedly told her to live for herself, but had somehow failed to follow her own advice. 

It’s not the first time she pulls her last letter from the depths of her drawer and studies each word like some kind of scholar. She thinks she can recite them by heart at this point, but on certain occasions she just has to actually look upon them. She needs to hold the paper between the tips of her fingers and imagine Ymir’s hand scrawling this herself, her knuckles white and numb, what was left of her heart spilling through the ink before she ran out of time and left this world with it. 

It's also not the first tear that has leaked from her eye, slid to the tip of her nose, and hit the yellowed papers and the cursed words they hold. This time, the droplet falls right on top of her own name and the _H_ and _i_ deform into a blotch. She thinks, sooner or later, it will all be unreadable.

This is what Ymir’s one last selfless act had gotten her (them both). 

-

It’s dark but she can see the ends of his lips curling up ever so slightly at the sound of his name. He smashes them against hers and her voice dissipates inside his mouth along with every single coherent thought she has; she arches her back and forgets where she is, what this is, and who they are. 

-

She has spent so much time looking at him, trying to find the phantom that has been plaguing him on his face, in his movements, on his very skin, but has repeatedly failed. 

Now that she knows of it, it becomes absurdly evident. She can now clearly see it in the circles around his eyes and even hear it in his voice. It starts crawling up her own skin and she can feel it becoming a part of herself, too. Perhaps it has been for a while.

“He can help us,” she says and momentarily looks away from Eren to instead stare at the unknowing man feeding the pigs, right in their lines of sight. “He will help me, for sure. He’ll do what’s necessary.” The farmer uses his hat to wipe sweat from his forehead, and he can’t have the slightest clue of the plans she’s concocting for him inside her head. Something like guilt clenches at her gut, but she tries to ignore it.

“He can’t know,” is all Eren says. She looks back at him, expecting to find him scrutinizing the farmer, but his eyes are right on her face instead. For the first time in a while, she catches a glimpse of actual remorse (perhaps a mere reflection of the one gnawing at her insides) somewhere behind green irises. 

“Well, then. I will have to… _he_ will have to...” her voice dies inside her throat. She doesn’t need to finish talking because the answer is as evident as every other thing she can now read on his face. She’s either gotten too good at this, or he’s just suddenly become an open book before her eyes. The details of what they’re planning stitch together like a complex fabric in the space between them; she can feel it wrapping around her throat and almost choking her. Can he feel it, too? Is he used to this?

She can’t keep looking at him. She folds her arms and stares at the man working by the pig pen instead. She finds herself envying his complete ignorance and her vision becomes blurry again. 

  
  


-

There is a tide, made up of a million tiny explosions, that starts at her center and runs along each nerve in her body. They detonate at the tips of her toes, like a small fire flame licking her skin, and at the top of her head, like an invisible crown she much prefers bearing.

She can feel each of his gasps and groans inside her own veins, spurring her blood. She can sense the weight and motion of his body electrifying every single atom that composes her own. 

Something swells inside her chest and she can’t believe she’s able to hold him any tighter than this. Hoping it will stop the upcoming final eruption. Knowing it won’t.

-

She’s used to touching him but never like this.

He interlocks his fingers with hers and she can recall each of the times she’s spent with him, her hand between his own two, his eyes completely elsewhere as he attempts to remember things that haven’t happened to him (things that haven’t happened to anyone yet). 

His lips move lazily against her own and she remembers him bringing her hand up them, pressing them chastely against the back of her palm as he tries to replicate the unravelling from the coronation. She remembers not knowing if he succeeded.

She’s feeling shy so she dares to tug at his nape, as if she’s dealing with his titan form, as if she wants to pull him out of it. She can sense him become eager and she guides his mouth to her throat; his moan vibrates against it and whatever restraint there was in either of them evaporates. Her fingers tangle at his hair, tighten at his shoulder, and she remembers placing these same hands on his cheeks, with a propriety that is now missing, with the sole goal of helping him remember. 

He pulls her gown over her head and stops to look. She misses the warmth of his lips against her and can feel cold timidity crawling up her chest under his stare. He drags his eyes up to her own and she remembers them focusing back, returning from a distant memory that doesn’t belong to him. 

He brings one hand up to her face and fixes a strand of hair on her temple. The gesture is absurdly delicate and yet feels like it has set fire on her skin and inside her gut. She remembers his fingers lingering against her own, touching her longer than necessary, his thumb rising and sinking between her knuckles, searching for completely different information. 

Perhaps this is not that new.

-

She’s at the peak of some sort of mountain, higher than the walls, higher than the universe itself. She looks down and realizes she’s standing on a cliff, knows it’s just a matter of time before she falls and dives into what this really is.

Something finally pushes her. She lands, and explodes, and can feel herself shattering into a million, tiny pieces. He doesn’t stop holding her and she hopes it’s enough to keep her collected. 

When her heartbeat slows and her breathing easies, she finds her limbs still entangled with his. The whole night passes and neither let go. She can feel his identity collapse between her arms. 

-

The farmer sidles up to her and offers her something to eat, asks her if there’s any pain, wonders if she needs anything, anything at all. She barely looks at him and replies with a single ‘ _no_ ’ that she hopes answers all of his inquiries. 

He stammers and excuses himself with an anxious nod that almost bends his waist. She can’t blame him; he’s a mixture of yearning and nerves. Perhaps even a dose of rejection.

He disappears back into the house and she lets a sigh escape her throat; she can almost see unbearable knowledge on her breath as it evaporates into the chilly, evening air. She’s still getting used to it.

She thinks of green, distant eyes as she often does, now. Her hands slide slowly from the top to the bottom of her bulbous stomach and land on her thighs. She sinks even deeper into the rocking chair and hopes she doesn’t have to stand up again, wishes the lethargy would either disappear or just finish taking her already.

The sun dips into the horizon and tints the sky red. The scarlet clouds remind her of blood; royal and running inside her veins, hot and steaming from a titan’s nape, dripping from Eren’s forehead into his eyes, spilling inside and outside this island with disregard. Soon it will be staining her sheets, too. She waits, and it’s the only thing she does now (she has a lifetime of practice, after all). 

Eren is not here but she can imagine looking through his eyes. Maybe the pregnancy has her imagining things, but she catches glimpses of monsters and destruction, like a perpetual nightmare no one can escape. Is this all he saw when he touched her? She foolishly clings to the belief that there is more to it and refuses to let go.

She thinks of Eren and imagines a man knowing the future and living backwards. The baby kicks inside of her, like a small reminder of what needs to be done.

**Author's Note:**

> So, this ended up being way more vague than I expected, but making it more explicit didn't feel right to me. I haven't considered myself an Eren/Historia "shipper" before, but the pairing certaintly intrigues me (enough for me to write this).


End file.
